Page 135 - Socially Intelligent Agents Creating Relationships with Computers and Robots

118 Socially Intelligent Agents

child interactions [18]. Overall, results so far seem to indicate that a) the robot
can serve as an interesting and responsive interaction partner (which might be
used in teaching social interaction skills), and b) that the robot can potentially
serve as a social facilitator and a device that can be used to assess the commu-
nication and social interaction competencies of children with autism. In order
to investigate robot-human interactions systematically, in the Aurora project
two analysis techniques have been developed and tested.

2. Analysis of Interactions
2.1 Methodological Issues

Trials are conducted at a room at Radlett Lodge School - the boarding school
that the children participating in the trial attend. This has many advantages
such as familiar surroundings for the children and the availability of teachers
who know the children well. The fact that the children do not need to travel
and that the trials inflict a minimum amount of disruption to lessons also helps
the children to adapt to the change in schedule.
The room used is approximately two meters by three meters, and is set aside
for us and so does not contain extra features or excess furniture. The robotic
platform used in this research is a Labo-1 robot. The robot is 30cm wide by
40cm long and weighs 6.5kg. It is equipped with eight infrared sensors (four
at the front, two at the rear and one at either side), as well as a heat sensor
on a swivel mount at the front of the robot. Using its sensors, the robot is
able to avoid obstacles and follow a heat source such as a child. Additionally,
a speech synthesiser unit can produce short spoken phrases using a neutral
intonation. The robot is heavy enough to be difficult for the children to pick
up and is robust enough to survive an average trial, including being pushed
around. The programming of the robot allows it to perform basic actions, such
as avoiding obstacles, following children and producing speech. The robot
will try to approach the child, respond vocally to his presence, and avoid other
obstacles - as well as not coming into actual contact with the child. All trials are
videotaped. In the following, the quantitative approach described in section 2.2
analyses robot-human interactions in comparative trials. Section 2.3 introduces
a qualitative approach that is applied to analyse the interactions of one child
with the robot and adults present during the trials.

2.2 A Quantitative Approach

The trials involve the child showing a wide variety of actions and responses
to situations. Unexpected actions are usually positive results and free expres-
sion and full-body movements are encouraged. In order to examine the inter-